So this AP may be the one that makes me cave and get the subscription. It seems to be the best stick to scratch that pirates rpg itch I've had for a while. (I took a good long look at 7th Sea a while back but it was more about continental Europe than about 7 seas...)
I'll probably get it anyway and find a way to have more common firearms (didn't see it in the Player's Guide but alchemists certainly fit in as gunpowder specialists; heck they're walking cannons).
My only question is how does the AP keep sailing as a mode of transportation relevant once teleport becomes available? Why would higher-level groups subject themselves to cramped, stinking ships for weeks at a stretch when they can simply banff to their destination?
I'm so incredibly for the pirate campaign but it's not really piratey without the ships which have their own personalities.
Thanks!
Mhh.. you can only bring a few people with you with teleport, conquering a ship with only 4 people may be difficult. :)
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Also, if a destination is another ship, it's awfully hard to actually teleport TO a ship, since it's constantly moving. You'd have to be able to scry someone on board it and teleport to their position in the same round (a scrying sensor is too slow to follow a moving ship).
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Because if your goal is "to play a pirate game" then the PCs and NPCs all decide to stop casting teleport, because that goes against the goal.
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In my games I don't allow scrying and teleporting unless they actually know the site where the scryed upon people exist. If you see someone on a deck of a ship which deck of which ship that's what you need to know for a location. I assume scrying is such a small window that there is not a wide angle lense to see lots of stuff around the scried upon object.
But teleporting or dimension dooring right onto a ship that you can see seems acceptable, I know at higher levels i might pull some tricks on the PC's that do this. Illuisionary ships, etc. Teleport traps i would think are very common on ships that don't want to be boarded if there is a 13th level cast on board.
Hmm, I may have based my concerns on older editions of teleport. I'll have to read up on the Pathfinder version. It's x many miles/lvl now, isn't it? That will still keep ships a viable option for farther destinations. As would weight limitations. If the pirates also double as merchants (however ill-gotten their cargo ;-) ), that ship would still be essential to lug all that stuff from one port to another.
Thanks, Biobeast and Jason, for the ideas on limiting Scry + Teleport.
Another friend of mine used to impose Can't-teleport-over-bodies-of-water in his worlds to so as to not render sailing obsolete.
Later on, Gate poses much the same problem of rendering sailing obsolete but that's level 17 stuff.
Yeah, Erik, I hear you, heheh. If your goal is to play a piratey game in Golarion where teleport exists, you still have to agree to keep the ships essential somehow. But this is all good.
Thanks for that, d20, I have the S&S PG but hadn't read that yet.
And yes, *sigh*, I did just cave and get the subscription. Very much looking forward to prepping and running this for my group.
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For another thing, not everyone has, or even knows, a caster of that level. Add to that, perhaps, that sailors can be superstitious and they've all heard horror stories of botched teleports.
Then there's the philosophy of the thing - not all ships are going to be filthy cramped stinking holes, especially not in a world with some magic. If there is magic aboard, all it takes is a cantrip to keep clean and a small spell to summon fresh water.
The romantic notion of the ship, as I see it, is mobility. If you keep all your stuff in one place, eventually someone will steal it - so take it with you. Take your whole life with you, and nobody will no where it is to bugger with it, as someone inevitably seems to wish to do. Incidentally, this plays well with teleport being difficult with ships, as that's only incentive to keep moving.
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Dimensional door is possible for accurate, short teleports (say boarding). Full on teleport is powerful, but you can only move so many people, and so much stuff.
As someone who regularly employs shenanigans, I see the appeal of a ship. It's actually pretty hard to track, locate, and get to someone on a ship. Full teleport is 100 miles a caster level, but the big limiter is you have to know where you're going. Ships move. Ships are not place, but a thing that can be somewhere else...
Plus, you can use magic to counter magical detection of your ship... what self respecting wizard wouldn't protect his vessel from scrying, or have some wall of fog prepped?
Ehhxcellent, Sekret_One, that's what I'm looking for: some sort of assurance that the ones who employ shenanigans would still be using ships.
I follow your point, Mr Radagast, regarding not everyone knowing a caster capable of teleporting. For many people, the price of passage overseas would still be more affordable or accessible than the price of a teleport. Since I have yet to run a party that does not have at least one player able to teleport, access to teleport was not really an issue. But come level 7 (So, Skull & Shackles vol 3?), would the party still want to travel by boat? What would prevent this conversation:
"So you must make your way to the Island Where the Quest Is."
"Okay. We divine its location and teleport there."
"But what about the Wormwood (or whatever the PCs would have renamed it)?"
"Jimmy the Cook can keep it warm for us until we get back."
I'm assuming it's covered in the AP but would hate that it not be. I'd hate to resort to a tacit agreement that players just forget about teleport magic for this particular campaign.
But your replies are solid; thank you, Pathfinder community! :-)
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Reasons you wouldn't want to teleport: If you try to teleport back to your ship, it has to be in the same spot. So you'll have to drop anchor in a harbor, and hope the boat doesn't move accidentally or intentionally. Can't do it in the ocean, because, you know, the ocean looks a lot like most of the rest of the ocean. Plus your ship will still be moving regardless.
Teleport can mess up and severely injure or kill you, especially if you're off target.
There are a lot of counter measures to divination, blocking it or misdirecting it- which in turn can make the teleport very dangerous.
How much do you trust Jimmy the Cook and the other folks on the ship?
What happens if the ship gets seriously attacked in turn when you're literally 100s of miles away?
How much swag can you carry when you want to teleport back?
Teleport is incredibly useful, but there's a lot of risks and vulnerabilities. Particularly if you do a lot of divination/teleporting, which only nets you a 'viewed once' ranking, odds are that you'll catch yourself in a teleporter accident at some point, take a bunch of damage and then end up... somewhere else.
But come level 7 (So, Skull & Shackles vol 3?), would the party still want to travel by boat? What would prevent this conversation:
"So you must make your way to the Island Where the Quest Is."
"Okay. We divine its location and teleport there."
"But what about the Wormwood (or whatever the PCs would have renamed it)?"
"Jimmy the Cook can keep it warm for us until we get back."
Man, I'd have so much fun with PCs who decided to play this game. Mutinies by the crew (there's always that one or two who secretly want the vessel for themselves) and hiring or getting that "low-level" mage who wasn't so low of a level to protect the ship from scrying or teleporting, or the PCs find their ship destroyed upon their return because reavers came across it while they were left it in a weakened state without captain and other leadership (which the PCs inevitably would be).
And if they didn't learn the first time, there would be a second and a third and a fourth . . . I could come up with all kinds of scenarios that would eventually have them getting the point, and all of them relatively natural. Anything from sahuagin attacks to the ship getting destroyed by a storm. It's not good for a captain and first mates to just leave their ship willy-nilly all the time! Bad things happen in a place like Golarion! =D
Merchants worth robbing (but not so heavily defended as to be impossible or overly dangerous to rob) don't generally have access to teleport. Therefore they carry lots of potential plunder on ships.
Said merchant ships will often be carrying too much for most casters to teleport with. Therefore you need a ship of your own to carry them after you rob them.
Enough pirates follow that logic and eventually a ship becomes seen as necessary equipment for piracy. If you don't have a ship, well sure you could rob people with teleport for the same result, but the different method makes you a teleporting thief, not a real pirate.
Why would higher-level groups subject themselves to cramped, stinking ships for weeks at a stretch when they can simply banff to their destination?
I've been running a privateer campaign for over 5 years. My solution for the teleport problem was two-fold.
First, it's a globe trotting campaign, so teleport doesn't have the range to get to every needed location in one shot; the earth's radius, for example, is roughly 3900+ miles, which means that you need greater teleport.
My second solution was more elegant. I house-ruled that teleportation felt like having your entire body diced and then reassembled. The party saves teleport for emergencies, as a result.
My second solution was more elegant. I house-ruled that teleportation felt like having your entire body diced and then reassembled. The party saves teleport for emergencies, as a result.
hmm sounds familliar : we use a "10 rounds to teleport in" rule nowadays... during which you slowly become visible in your target point, giving fair warning. Makes ships etc. targets not worth porting too,anyway - since they will have gone further on their course. Dimension Door etc was not affected.
Previously, In our older campaigns, we simply used a "Fort Save DC 15+ 1/100 miles travelled, or become nauseated at target point for 2D6 rounds"....Now that put a stop to "let's port in" stupidity really quickly
Just get them by roleplaying
Let them teleport into (or above) shark infested waters.
I house-ruled that teleportation felt like having your entire body diced and then reassembled.
we simply used a "Fort Save ..., or become nauseated at target point for 2D6 rounds
How did the teleport refrain from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy go? The one where each verse extolled the virtues of various exotic locales but the punch line at the end of the verse went along the lines of (paraphrase): "If you have to teleport me to get there, then I, for one, don't want to go." Yes, good times. Been a while since I've read Hitchhiker's...
Let them teleport into (or above) shark infested waters.
*evil grin* I look forward to posting the first teleport-related TPK once the sharks play chum-tag.
Let them teleport into (or above) shark infested waters.
*evil grin* I look forward to posting the first teleport-related TPK once the sharks play chum-tag.
And if the party is too tough for the sharks, toss in Cthulhu.